Chandigarh: With a sudden spike in Covid-19 cases, intensive care units in Punjab seem to be bursting at the seams. With most of these already full, patients requiring treatment in ICUs are reportedly being turned away. The state has reported around 14,000 cases in the first 15 days of this month. The number of deaths during the period was around 400, which was more than the deaths witnessed between March and July.
Gian Sagar Medical College, which provides ICU facility to patients from Fatehgarh Sahib, Mohali and Ropar districts, has started sending back such patients. The hospital has 20 ventilators and 300 other beds. Over the past two weeks, the hospital authorities sent back two ambulances carrying high-risk Covid patients on the pretext of non-availability of beds, said a senior health functionary in Mohali district. A doctor posted in the Covid ward at the Ropar district hospital said earlier they were referring high-risk patients to Gian Sagar Hospital, but not anymore as not enough beds were available there. Even the authorities at government hospitals in Chandigarh seem reluctant to take patients from Punjab.
Covid deaths on the rise
The Covid deaths percentage at Government Rajindra Hospital, a tertiary healthcare institution, has been increasing with each passing day. The daily deaths count has now reached around 12. The increasing death rate at the hospital has already raised alarm bells for the hospital authorities, the state health department and patients. Until August 15, as many as 155 Covid deaths were reported in the hospital of the 1,075 patients admitted in the Covid ward of the hospital.
The sources at the Covid ward revealed that daily death count had increased from an average of five to seven to 12 in a week. Meanwhile, the hospital authorities attributed the spike in Covid death rate to the referral of only more severe patients to the hospital. The authorities claimed that more sick patients from other parts of the state had been referred to the hospital that soared the death rate.
A hospital official said: “There is a lack of patient care at the Covid ward. The doctors (consultants), in person, are not visiting the patients, thereby, creating a sense of negligence in the mind of the patients.” In fact, the nurses have already alleged that doctors don’t enter the Covid ward. The sources informed that nurses had complained to the hospital authorities against the doctors for failing to address the problems of the patients.
